Supreme Court ruling shuts door against rights’ suits

The Supreme Court has ruled that Nigerian plaintiffs who said foreign oil companies were complicit in violating their rights may not sue in the United States (US) courts.

The decision limits the sweep of a 1789 law that had been used to address human rights abuses abroad.

The law was largely ignored until the 1980s, when federal courts started to apply it in international human rights cases.

The 1789 law, the Alien Tort Statute, allows federal courts to hear “any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States”.

The decision on Wednesday was unanimous but the court members were divided on their reasoning.

Chief Justice John Roberts Jnr. said a general presumption against the extraterritorial application of US law barred the suit.

“Corporations are often present in many countries,” he wrote, “and it would reach too far to say mere corporate presence suffices.”

Justice Stephen Breyer said he “will not invoke the presumption against extraterritoriality”.

According to him, suits under the law should be allowed when “the defendant’s conduct substantially and adversely affects an important American national interest, and that includes a distinct interest in preventing the United States from becoming a safe harbour (free of civil as well as criminal liability) for a torturer or other common enemy of mankind”.